Social Change and Violence

Have you ever received a death threat? If you're a zoo reading this, chances are that you've probably gotten at least one. Some of them are funny. Cringey memes of whatever anime character is popular at the time with some lame caption on it. Other times, they can be graphic descriptions of the ways that someone would love to murder you. Other times they can be calls for people to find your address and post it so that they can get a mob together and hunt you down.

I would not say that reading those kinds of messages is my favorite part of being a zoo. I would actually rank it pretty close to the bottom. But like pus in an infection, that's actually a symptom of things working as intended. It's a warning sign, but it shows that the body is fighting back. In this case, the body that we're talking about is society, and the infection is us. 

Today I want to talk about social change. It's something that's necessary, something we've all gone through before. But it's typically also something unpleasant. 

Have you ever swam in a pool or a lake that's a little cold? You stick your leg in and jerk it back out because it feels like it's freezing, even though once you choose to jump in your body acclimates and it feels perfectly fine. People hate change. Most people anyway. In an ideal world, when presented with new information, people would stop, assess this new information, perfectly compare it against every piece of information that has ever been around them, also learn every piece of information that has ever existed and assess that too, and come up with some kind of conclusion based around the sum of all facts. However, that would take a lot of time and energy, based on what we currently know about physics. Instead of accepting that the Earth orbits around the sun, it's much easier to just execute the guy that figured that out and just move on. The human brain is designed to work around things it already knows. We have our habits, our likes and dislikes, and also the things we believe in. Once you learn something it can be hard to shake your belief in that thing. So, instead, when presented with new information, most people just choose to reject it wholesale without spending any time or effort actually thinking about it.

So, say that you come across new information, and that new information isn't immediately cohesive with your current beliefs. What do you do? Well, typically, you ignore it. And if you can't ignore it, or it keeps getting brought up, you get angry. Again, not everyone, but en masse people get stressed out by that situation, and that stress can easily lead to anger if it keeps building. This is doubly true if the new information is asking you to change your opinions and accept that new stance as true. 

Say there's a Twitter user just going about their day when all of a sudden they see a tweet talking about something problematic a celebrity they like did. It's an account with a lot of followers, and they're really going in on the celeb. Very rarely is this person's first thought going to be "oh wow what an interesting and nuanced stance. I should consider this." Because if they've already decided they like said celebrity, getting new information about them that's negative is going to go against their beliefs.

When it comes to something more emotionally charged though, it can be much more severe of a reaction. To the average "wants to engage" Twitter user just scrolling through their feed, when they see something like "Zoophilia should be legalized, animals are super hot." The reaction is much more likely to be aggressive. Threats of violence or implied harm. The kind of thing you'll see all the time if you use social media. This is a reaction to new information, and more specifically, to change. Again, this is IF people care to engage at all, the vast majority just keep scrolling. But, the people who engage are the people who we can see.

Which brings me to my point here. Social change isn't easy. It's violent. It's forceful. It's aggressive. No social change happens by chance. It's ripping and tearing and cutting and pasting until eventually things just fit. 

This isn't something true of just zoosexuality. This is true of every social movement that's ever occurred. The end of slavery was a war. People believed in slavery so much they were literally willing to risk death to maintain it. Black Americans were lynched by people who refused to recognize them as humans, and that practice occured well after the civil war and even after the civil rights movement. During the suffragette movement, women were routinely attacked and sexually assaulted by counter protestors, the police, and sometimes even their husbands. Stonewall started because police were raiding bars where queer people existed. Police were frequently used to attack gay people existing out of view in gay spaces just because people didn't like the idea of them. In fact, just before publishing this news came out that a number of Russian bars were raided with tons of arrests made in an effort to fight against the "LGBT Movement," something that Russia labeled a terrorist organization last year. If you're a bigot, you might see that as a win against big gay, but if you're someone who supports queer folks you're going to see that as an attack on their freedoms. And if you're a zoo reading this, it might be incredibly hard to understand or sympathise with those kinds of actions. And by no means would I ever consider them excusable, but it's important to recognize that this is a very human thing we've seen time and time again. Social change is violent. To these people, the world works a certain way, and to change that often time requires them to change themselves too. 

Thankfully for us, however, the world today is different to what it's ever been before, partially thanks to the internet. To fight for our cause we don't currently have to deal with the certainty of physical violence. We can stay anonymous and reach out to the social fabric of society from the comfort of our living rooms. This may not always be the case, but for some it's something we can enjoy. As such, the violence is directed through the channels people can access us via; words out, words back. The same internet we use to promote our ideas, they use to promote their hate. They can't spit on us, but they can tell us to kill ourselves. They can't leave shit in our mailbox, but they can DM us graphic gore. They can't firebomb our home, but they can try to deplatform us. They can't kill us, but they can tell us just how much they wish they could. And once they're doing all that, it becomes even harder for them to change their minds.

For instance, say that you're someone who hates zoos. You spend a bunch of time hating zoos. You send lots of angry messages. You raid their spaces. Hating zoos isn't just something you believe, it's something you do. If, at some point, there was a social movement for zoos and we started gaining acceptance, our zoo hater in question would have two options. Either accept that they were wrong and choose to see the other side, or double down and get even more defensive. If you've been paying attention, you should know the reason people tend towards the latter. Because to do otherwise they would be forced to accept a whole lot of new information and change their minds. In a situation like this however, it's even worse because they may also have to confront their actions. If you believe that actually zoos were right, all that stuff you did to torment them reflects pretty poorly on you. You go from being the hero fighting against animal abuse, to a backwards bully trying to keep a marginalized group down. You may even be forced to take accountability for your actions, something that many people dread to do. So instead you get even more aggresive to defend your beliefs. And the more aggressive you get, the more you would have to walk back if you admit fault, and it goes on and on. 

And this is important to think about, because the thing about social movements is that they force people to choose a side. We talk a lot about how in the real world, probably 80% of people have basically never thought about bestiality before in their lives. A social movement changes that. Suddenly, zoophiles are on the news, in the media, holding rallies. At some point, it's going to come up in conversation. And those people are going to have to say "yeah they're fine," or "no I don't like 'em." And like we've been saying, once someone's mind is made up it's hard to change it. And when that time comes, that's when actual change happens. 

I don't mean to make this sound like an impossible problem to solve by any means. Because it's not. Way more people have rights today than they did 200 years ago. And in 200 years I'd be fairly confident in saying we'll have more rights too. But it helps to be prepared as to what we can expect. Because as more and more of our messaging spreads, there's going to be a time where it feels like the whole world is attacking us. Where every single person wants to kill us. Where instead of 10 death threats a week I'm getting hundreds. Maybe even thousands. 

But that's okay. I mean, don't get me wrong it's also very fucked up to send that kind of message to a stranger. But here's what I'm trying to get at. Hate is scary. Someone telling you they're going to kill you is scary. But it's nothing that social movements of before haven't gone through. Sometimes it's going to hurt. Sometimes it's going to be sad. Sometimes it's just going to be awful. Nothing in this world ever happens on its own. And that negativity is the friction of things sliding into place. 

This shouldn't be discouraging. This is a sign of progress. Every hateful reply spreads our message further. The violence is a part of the process. The ride is only going to get bumpier from here, but the destination is worth the journey, in my opinion at least. I want a world where we can wear zoo pride pins at work. Where we can tell our families about out wonderful partners. Where we don't have to be scared to be ourselves.

So the next time you get a death threat, look at it this way. It sucks that this person is trying to harass you, but there's never social change without violence, and at least you can turn off your computer. 

Let's ride out the storm dear readers, and find the rainbow on the other side.